Awful that child kidnapping, baby factories and sale of infants are thriving in democratic Nigeria
Our recent essay dealing with the preponderance of quack drugs and merchants in Nigeria is garnering a large readership.
The instant essay focuses on another corruption that is mushrooming
or rapidly gaining ground in Nigeria, It
is none other than the crime of selling infants under the pretext of overcoming
poverty or assisting persons facing childlessness. Consider the Biblical story told in first Chapter
first Book of Samuel.
The purpose of this essay is to suggest that Nigeria ought
to do away the crime of child kidnapping and sale of infants which still persist in the country despite all
attempts to stamp out the iniquities.
No family or marriage is considered whole or successful
until a child is born. A woman without a child is a complainant, worse than a
petitioner seeking a redress in a court
of law where she has hasn’t got jurisdiction.
The childless woman
is likened to a beggar on the street taken advantage of by a panhandler who sells
her a baby for the price of a plate of jollof rice.
This essay takes the position that a family afflicted with
childlessness is the talk of the town where the infertile woman lives.
People point at the man and say “he’s without an issue” and
of the woman they say “her’s is a body that cannot produce ‘fruit of the womb’”. A childless person is an
oddity.
Oddity is a peculiarity that turns into a laughing-stock in
the community, A childless woman is worse than just a laughing stock; she is a caricature.
A caricature is a laughter that occurs when a victim is subjected to general
mockery or ridicule.
If you are childless, you are caricatured in that you are mimicked,
satirized, aped, parodied. The reason for
being pointed out is that you are object of lampoon reserved for one who is
destitute, a person that has nothing,
not even a child.
Childlessness has
been a problem from time immemorial, from antiquity even before the birth of
the Savior the Christ. Remember the story of Hannah married to a husband named Elkananah?.
Like many Nigerian men, including this writer’s
brother-in-law who has my sister and another woman as wives, Elkananah was a Hebrew polygamist who was
married to two wives named Hannah and Penninah.
Penninah had several children while Hannah had none. Penninah
often tormented childless Hannah, calling her all sorts of names. Hannah often
wept, refusing to eat or be comforted,
Though her husband had given the childless wife Hannah more
belongings than he had given the child-bearing Penninah, things seemed to get
worse rather than better. Elkananh did show partiality in order to create
harmony in the family.
“Give me a child or I
die,” Hannah often cried to her husband’s
greatest annoyance. Invariably, Elkananh
thought in his mind: Look-oo na big
trouble-oo.
“Am I God to give or withdraw babies?” The husband protested at his childless, weeping, sorrowful ,
inconsolable wife. A family where there are no children is a devil workshop that
manufactures palaver (Nigerian word for problems).
In my home Nigeria, many women are hard at work conceiving
and producing as many babies as they
possibly can in order to feel accomplished
and be desired by their husbands..
Some unscrupulous citizens (men and women) are busy kidnapping
other women’s children and selling them for money in order to avoid pennilessness and to
succor women afflicted with childlessness.
In Nigeria, kidnapping and human trafficking of infants are
crimes that seem thrive as a means to solve the problem of childlessness or
hunger.
But the crimes are becoming
increasingly commonplace or conventional, as a result of poverty created by the
Muslin-led government.
That child kidnapping persists along with the selling is undeniable.
The incontrovertibility, incontestability, or unquestionableness is as obvious as the selling of Eba (garri)
and osikapa (rice) in the open at Alaba Market .
Although the Nigerians notice or should have noticed that the
crime of buying and selling babies is unnatural, yet they go about their businesses
unperturbed, pretending to not notice.
The story is told of a daughter who was pushed out of her
family, excommunicated from her kindred and disinherited because she refused to
sell her newborn in order to provide money to feed the rest of the clan.
from YNaija https://ynaija.com/baby-the-injustice-blog-while-many-are-trying-hard-to-conceive-others-are-selling-theirs/
Poverty is not and should not be sufficient excuse to drive
out a child that refuses to engage in human trafficking, namely the sale of her baby, just as having
no money does not ipso facto justify prostitution.
The human baby and
body are sacred and ought to be treated
as such, despite the degree of hunger or
the number of childless women lining the gates of Aso Rock.
Although the Nigerian Government has established orphanages
to facilitate the care and adoption of infants, many Nigerians still persist in
frequenting baby factories under the guise of trading or solving the problem created by
childlessness.
As one cannot rob Paul to pay Peter, and as two wrongs do
not make a right, you either make it all right or leave the wrong alone.
Trading on babies is reprehensible and
subjects Nigeria to general mockery and
ridicule in the committee of civilized nations.
A crime is a crime and ought to be punished as such to the
fullest extent of the law both for the sellers and buyers of babies, and families which promote
such illegal transactions.
According to a report by Punch,
4-year-old Elo Ogidi, who went missing during a church service at
the Christ Embassy, has been found in Benin, Edo state, in an orphanage after
she was kidnapped on Sunday, July 8, 2018.Read more: https://www.pulse.ng/gist/metro/missing-4-yr-old-girl-during-church-service-found-in-orphanage-id8770062.html.
In another case, the Nigerian Police as recently as Monday,
October 8, 2018,arraigned 48-years-old Akwaja Adaeze, in Wuse Zone 6
Magistrates’ Court in Abuja, for allegedly kidnapping a minor and selling him
off for N650,000. Read more: https://www.tori.ng/news/107858/woman-arrested-for-kidnapping-and-selling-another.html
Defendant Akwaja- Adaeze, who is a trader and resides in
Imo, had pleaded not guilty to the two-count charge of criminal conspiracy and
kidnapping leveled against her. She could be claiming that “the child is mine.”
The prosecutor, Mr Fedelix Egwube, told the court that the
Police Command in Imo had arrested one Pricilia Egole with a child suspected to
have been abducted.
Egwube said that during police investigations it was
revealed that Adaeze kidnapped the minor along Zuba-Suleja Road in Abuja.
He added that Adaeze allegedly took the minor to Imo without
the consent of his parents and sold him to Egole for N650,000 (1831 US Dollars).
The prosecutor, Mr Fedelix Egwube, told the court that the
Police Command in Imo had arrested one Pricilia Egole with a child suspected to
have been abducted.
Prosecutor Egwube made several allegations. First,
police investigations revealed that Adaeze kidnapped the minor along
Zuba-Suleja Road in Abuja.
Secondly, Adaeze allegedly took the minor to Imo without the
consent of his parents and sold him to Egole for N650,000.
Egwube also said that the police has released the kidnapped
victim to the parents after appropriate investigation.
The prosecutor said that the offence contravened the
provisions of Section 97 and 273 of the Penal Code.
Mr Jeojima Thompson, Counsel to the defendant, thereafter,
filed an oral application seeking the court to admit his client to bail.
Thompson said the alleged offences were bailable,
adding that his client would always be available to stand justice. He said: “I
assure the court that the defendant would not jump bail if admitted,’’ he
said.
The Magistrate, Ahmad Ndajiwo, granted bail to the
defendant in the sum of N500,000 with two sureties in like sum, and ordered the
sureties must reside within the court jurisdiction and he adjourned the case
until Nov. 13 for hearing.
Th9s essay would not end without noticing that Edo State
seems to be leading the nation is championing illegal trade in minor children.
This writer has had conversations with a 50-something-year-old
aged Nigerian childless woman who had
travelled to Edo to adopt a little girl.
After paying N400,000 ($1,600 at N250/$ at that time) and returning
to Abuja with the adoptive , the adoption agency asked the adopting mother to
return the child with the excuse that
the birth mother did not approve of the adoption .
The purpose of this essay is to state categorically that
adoption is in shambles in Nigeria as there is no meeting of the minds of all
concerned stakeholders.
The conclusion is a moral question. Isn’t it extremely anachronistic
that baby factories and sale of infants
are thriving well in my democratic country? There is no way to ascertain how
many of the kidnapped children are actually adopted by childless couples and how many perish at the hands of evil cultists.
The readers shall
agree that producing babies in factories for the sole aim of selling to persons
who want to avoid poverty or assisting childless couples to have children, is
anachronistic, old-fashioned, outdated, obsolete, archaic, antiquated. It is primitive
when education in the sciences ought to provide batter options than human
trafficking.
Dr. James C. Agazie, jamesagazie@gmail.com;
jamesagazies.blogspot.com
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